Does Live Video Make Sense for Your Content Marketing Strategy?

You can find a ton of stats about the rise of live video. They’re all impressive. We spend hours upon hours thumbing through Snapchat Stories every week, and Facebook Live is great at distracting hard-working, focused employees during business hours. I personally spent more time than I’m willing to admit watching BuzzFeed find out how many elastic bands can be wrapped around a watermelon before it explodes (I wasn’t the only one hypnotized by the fruit hijinks – at its peak, 800,000 people were tuned into the 45-minute live event, and the video has since surpassed 10 million views).

Why? FOMO. Fear of missing out. We live in a generation obsessed with how horrible it is to feel left behind or disenfranchised. Live streams and vanishing videos tap into our collective need to feel part of something – even if that “something” is an exploding watermelon.

The rising popularity of live video has given companies an opportunity to get creative and produce content experiences that can’t be missed. They’re using live video to connect with their audiences, boost awareness, and have fun with branding – but while a handful of companies have added live video to their content arsenals, there are more companies that haven’t.

So, to stream or not to stream? Before experimenting with live video, it’s a good idea to consider how it will help you get to your overall content marketing goals. Like with all good content marketing, you need to be intentional with the content that you create and distribute.

To help you out, I’ve listed out my three favorite examples of live video campaigns and the types of content marketing goals that got a boost from their success.

Grow Your Audience, Literally & Digitally

Did you know that out of the 650 million plus people that call themselves Manchester United fans, less than 1% of them actually live in the U.K.? It’s a little heartbreaking that most fans will never get to visit Old Trafford Stadium to witness a live match.

Enter live video.

Manchester United cleverly used Google+ to boost “attendance” for a match against Liverpool and gave a handful of fans the opportunity to watch a match from the front row without having to step outside their front door.

The team asked fans to post the hashtag #MUFrontRow on their own Google+ Pages along with a photo that captured their team spirit. The 22 best entries were selected, and the lucky fans were then projected, via Google+ Hangouts, onto the stadium’s digital advertising boards that run along the field.

100 million people watched the Front Row Live, #MUFrontRow was the top trending topic on Google+ the day it launched and Manchester United saw an 250% increase of followers on the social network.

Inject Some Personality into Your Brand

People love interacting with other people. With brands? Not so much.

Live video provides the perfect medium to give your brand a voice – and face – as well as an interactive platform to talk to audiences, instead of talking at them, in real-time.

Benefit, a cosmetics brand known for its quirky personality, launched a weekly livestream talk show, “Tipsy Tricks with Benefit” in early 2016 on Facebook Live. Each installment features the host and a guest discussing a beauty topic and fielding live viewer questions – while sipping some wine. Check out an episode.

It’s a fun way to showcase products, build a sense of community and get audiences on a content calendar.

The live events pull in 40,000 – 50,000 views each, and post-event viewership stays high with an average of 2,000 people watching at any given time.

Show Off What You’re Best At

I check in with Tastemade on Snapchat every single day, usually when my stomach starts to remind me that it’s dinner time. Their recipe videos are every food lover’s dream. They’re the best at everything related to food, and they used Facebook Live to show that off with an awesome campaign to engage with the people, like me, that prioritize food over everything.

Earlier this year, Tastemade streamed, on Facebook Live, a video some impressive latte art being created in real-time. Watch it here.

As part of their #FoodArtFriday series, the brand asked viewers to submit requests for what they wanted to see come to life on top of the lattes. The video received over 90,000 comments and almost 5,000 shares.

For more about how live video can fit into your content marketing strategy, check out this post from Convince and Convert for more success stories.

ScribbleLive is an award-winning content performance company that provides global brands with the insights and solutions they need to better attract, convert, and retain their audiences. Companies such as RedBull, Fedex, Dell, Reuters, Yahoo, American Express and the Boston Globe leverage the ScribbleLive Content Cloud to create scalable, premium content, interactive experiences and real-time audience engagement. Our goal is to help you optimize your content performance and drive better business results.